How to Put a System Together
In designing the company's system of activities, managers must bear four principles in mind. First, the individual activities you choose to undertake must be the ones that are demanded by the market. For example, there is no sense in developing an extensive network of dealers if you can distribute your product more effectively through the Internet. Similarly, there is no point in building or leveraging your core competencies in channel management if customers are increasingly buying direct from the market. The point is simple: in deciding what activities to perform (or what competencies to leverage), you must always start with an analysis of the market. The goal is to the identify activities that will give you "fit" with what the market requires.